Facebook Questions now answering to all

Facebook has opened up its Questions service to its 500 million+ members, bringing the end to a beta trial that has been rolling on since July last year.

Facebook's answer to Yahoo's question service has the premise of engaging the collective intelligence of the web in order to answer some of the world's most sought after questions.

Questions such as: "What type of flower is growing in my back yard?" And "Which video game system is better for my 8 year-old cousin: Wii or Xbox?" These are the two examples thrown up by Facebook's Blake Ross in a blog post detailing the service back in July.

It's hardly Quora then - although the level of depth for the questions really depends of the person asking, and his contact base's ability to adequately respond.

You can choose to just ask your friends, as per a usual status update, but you can also seek out subject experts by tagging your question with a specific theme. Facebook will then filter those questions to people "in the know".

Friends of friends can also answer, and if you want a quick response you can simply set up a poll for instant answers. You can even add pictures and a poll to your question to illustrate your query more clearly.

"Like many of our products, Questions originated as people began using Facebook in a new and unexpected way," said Facebook Questions executive Adrian Graham.

"People would update their status with a question, and their friends would answer in the comments. We saw this and began thinking about how we could make this interaction more useful.Over the summer, we began testing Questions with a small group of people, and today we are beginning to roll it out to everyone."

It should be coming your way soon, but if you simply can't wait to get asking questions then try it out first at facebook.com/questions.